Inspired by Tudor and Stuart fashion

Friday, 5 October 2012

Costume Design and Interpretation students from Wimbledon College of Art joined curator Anna Reynolds at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace to launch their collaboration with Royal Collection Trust. Together they explored paintings in the forthcoming exhibition In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion, which opens at the Gallery in May.

Over 100 students are taking part in a project to create historically accurate reconstructions of Tudor and Stuart fashion, alongside their own eclectic interpretations. Their completed work will be presented in a fashion show at The Queen’s Gallery next year.

Tudor and Stuart courts were renowned for their sumptuous costume. The exhibition explores how 16th- and 17th-century fashion was used to carry meaning and convey important messages about wealth, social position, marital status and even religion. Costume was used as visual propaganda to present monarchs as leaders of taste and to create the image of magnificence.

Exhibition curator Anna Reynolds said, ‘It will be exciting to see how the students’ ideas develop over the next six months. They were particularly fascinated by the small details of clothing and jewellery in the paintings. We look forward to seeing their imaginative designs and how they choose to incorporate the old in the new.’

In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion brings together more than 60 paintings, as well as drawings, jewellery, garments, accessories and armour. It follows the changing fashions of the period, the spread of styles internationally and the role of artists as stylists. The exhibition includes works by Anthony van Dyck, Hans Holbein the Younger, Nicholas Hilliard and Peter Lely.